The results are in. We asked our Speech Language Pathologists what the best toys were for promoting speech and language development. Here are some of their favorites!

Mr. Potato Head: This toy provides an opportunity for parents to engage their children by helping them make choices between the next piece they want to put in the potato. It also provides an opportunity to help the child make eye contact by holding the piece up by your eyes. This is a fun toy to learn body parts and a good way to practice yes/no questions by putting pieces in the wrong spot and asking, "Do the eyes go here?"

Barn and Farm Animal Toy: This is a fun toy that allows children to learn and develop pretend and imaginary play skills. The animals can do a lot of actions including: eat, sleep, walk, jump, fall and run. Your child can imitate the actions of the animals. It's also a fun way to practice following directions. Animal sounds are some of the earliest and easiest sounds for kids to imitate.

Kitchen Sets: A pretend kitchen play set is a great way to work on naming or identifying foods. Your child can talk about a lot of different actions as they play: eat, drink, stir, cook, bake, mix, chop, and cut. You can work on prepositions by having them put food inor take food out of the sink, oven or microwave.